12 is the number of times I went up and down the stairs to carry some disassembled furniture from Gene's office into the basement. My knees HATE me.
12 is also the number of days until we get married. The favors are done, all of the vendors are lined up - just have to finalize a few things with the officiant, DJ, and the venue. We've got a beautiful guest book (thanks Barbara!) and the bird cage for cards (thanks Joan!), and the onerous task of peeling stupid UPC symbols off of 120 bubble bottles is nearly done (thanks Oriental Traders for putting your labels in the WORST places).
Monday, March 17, 2014
Thursday, March 13, 2014
16
16 is the day on which I discovered I was extremely wise in wearing my "portable comforter" and saw the inside of the Port Authority Bus Terminal on 42nd Street in Manhattan for the first time. Not for the first or last time, NJ Transit receives my ire for not having a satisfactory response to service outages on the RVL.
The 1st degree burn I got on my hand the other day from the oven rack looks much more red in contrast to my pasty white skin, but it is not infected. Maybe it will heal up by the time I get married. I can hope, anyway.
The 1st degree burn I got on my hand the other day from the oven rack looks much more red in contrast to my pasty white skin, but it is not infected. Maybe it will heal up by the time I get married. I can hope, anyway.
17
"When I was seventeen, it was a very good year..."
"She's only seventeen. Daddy says she's too young, but she's old enough for me..."
"She was just seventeen, if you know what I mean..."
"All alone on the edge of seventeen..."
"You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen..."
It's also the number of days left until I no longer check the "single" box on a form.
"She's only seventeen. Daddy says she's too young, but she's old enough for me..."
"She was just seventeen, if you know what I mean..."
"All alone on the edge of seventeen..."
"You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen..."
It's also the number of days left until I no longer check the "single" box on a form.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Tree surgeon
BB took a photo of my dwarf laceleaf Japanese maple in front of the living room bay window, and it looks like the winter snows have split the trunk. Can't get to it yet, but when the snows recede, I will try to do a bit of surgery on it to possibly save it.
If not, I may replace with a different shrub or dwarf tree, because this is not a low-maintence plant - the edges of the leaves on this one get very crispy looking in the summer, even if we have enough rain. Maybe a red twigged dogwood (which Rutgers says is only occasionally damaged by deer), a gingko, or a Harry Lauder's Walking Stick.
If the tree is unrecoverable, I may re-envision the whole bed altogether - the edge along the walkway is in shade from the cherry tree, but the rest is in full south sun. There had been a water feature in the center of a rocky oblong, which they replaced with the Japanese maple. That rocky area is edged with azaleas, spruce, and a boxwood along the house. The shady part has hostas (deer salad), along with lungwort and primroses that I added.
If I take all the rocks out, I can totally re-do the whole area. I'm sure I have enough plant material around the yard to make a good show of it, and BB's co-worker is always willing to divide a few things for me. BB hates the blue spruce shrubs, as they are seriously prickly. I cut the azaleas way back last year as they were overgrown and I couldn't open the living room windows.
If not, I may replace with a different shrub or dwarf tree, because this is not a low-maintence plant - the edges of the leaves on this one get very crispy looking in the summer, even if we have enough rain. Maybe a red twigged dogwood (which Rutgers says is only occasionally damaged by deer), a gingko, or a Harry Lauder's Walking Stick.
If the tree is unrecoverable, I may re-envision the whole bed altogether - the edge along the walkway is in shade from the cherry tree, but the rest is in full south sun. There had been a water feature in the center of a rocky oblong, which they replaced with the Japanese maple. That rocky area is edged with azaleas, spruce, and a boxwood along the house. The shady part has hostas (deer salad), along with lungwort and primroses that I added.
If I take all the rocks out, I can totally re-do the whole area. I'm sure I have enough plant material around the yard to make a good show of it, and BB's co-worker is always willing to divide a few things for me. BB hates the blue spruce shrubs, as they are seriously prickly. I cut the azaleas way back last year as they were overgrown and I couldn't open the living room windows.
Monday, March 3, 2014
T-minus 26 days and counting...
Oh good heavens, it's getting CLOSE. We're applying for our marriage license on Friday - THIS COMING FRIDAY. I gotta get the favors and bubbles finished & start nagging non-RSVP relatives, not necessarily in that order. My dress is home, sheet-covered and hanging in the disused half-bath off the master bedroom. My veil was torn when I was there last week, so I pick up the replacement tomorrow.
Screw it if the house doesn't get cleaned before Aunt D. comes over to get her hair done the morning of the wedding. Been feeling like crap three weekends in a row, and she'll just have to deal with it. Mom offered to help, so I'm doing my best to get the clutter put away so that we can just clean, because the sorting of stuff takes too damned long. Was hoping to paint the kitchen, but that shit'll really have to wait. We did get the Christmas tree put away, finally.
The official start of Spring is a week before the wedding, I'm hoping the "out like a Lamb" really applies. Honestly, I can deal with anything Skadi / Cailleach / [insert wintery diety name here] wants to throw at me up until the 21st. After that, Lords and Ladies, please lay off Winter, even if it's just until April 1.
Screw it if the house doesn't get cleaned before Aunt D. comes over to get her hair done the morning of the wedding. Been feeling like crap three weekends in a row, and she'll just have to deal with it. Mom offered to help, so I'm doing my best to get the clutter put away so that we can just clean, because the sorting of stuff takes too damned long. Was hoping to paint the kitchen, but that shit'll really have to wait. We did get the Christmas tree put away, finally.
The official start of Spring is a week before the wedding, I'm hoping the "out like a Lamb" really applies. Honestly, I can deal with anything Skadi / Cailleach / [insert wintery diety name here] wants to throw at me up until the 21st. After that, Lords and Ladies, please lay off Winter, even if it's just until April 1.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
It's days like this I wonder if Spring will ever come
We had another 2-3" predicted for today. There is easily over three feet of snow over most of my beds at this point, it's hard to believe that anything will come up in the spring at all, but I'm pretty hopeful that the cold will not have harmed anything but pests.
I'm terribly eager to get out and start digging. However, I just chucked a bunch of plant catalogs in this morning's recycle pickup because this is the Year of Gardening Austerity*, though I have to say that it's VERY tempting to buy hundreds of dollars worth of plants whose placement would be rather subject to what survives through the Extremely Cold and Snowy Winter of 2013/2014.
The Year of Gardening Austerity is thusly named not because we're spending a lot on our March wedding (first and only for both of us), but because I want to find out how much I have learned about propagation. Many of my plants are at the stage of life where division will be necessary for continued health and beauty. I'm also ready to try my hand at sticking cuttings of my dwarf shrubs: spirea 'Golden Elf' and weigela "My Monet" which have done quite well but look lonely as single specimens. I also have a bunch of daylily seeds we saved - it should be interesting to see what sorts of hybrids we ended up with. Bearberry looks like it'd be easy to layer.
My Red Drift carpet roses are screaming for a move from under the purple beautyberries which have grown bigger and better than I'd expected. I still have to decide where they're going - they've got to go somewhere that is low traffic not because they can't handle a trampling (they can), but because they're anklebiters. I can't get to them right now to start the process which starts with me pruning them way back, and then scoring around them with a spade to trim the roots so that I am not transporting a rootball the size of Rhode Island around my backyard.
I'm also looking forward to doing more work on the new shade beds behind the shed, to give my neighbors something to look at other than a big blank wall. I put two plugs of ornamental grass back there last year after Broccoli Boy helped me dig up a huge clump of it from the front walk bed (I replaced it with a magenta mondarda (bee balm) - which the bees really do like) - they were doing well in autumn, we'll see (next month, maybe) if they made it through the winter.
In other news, the winter has shown us a lot of fauna that we normally don't see. Birds like dark eyed juncos; and what I think is some sort of black and white warbler or perhaps a downy woodpecker; have been spotted at the feeder. BB spotted what is probably a red bellied woodpecker, but I wasn't home to see it.
I'm terribly eager to get out and start digging. However, I just chucked a bunch of plant catalogs in this morning's recycle pickup because this is the Year of Gardening Austerity*, though I have to say that it's VERY tempting to buy hundreds of dollars worth of plants whose placement would be rather subject to what survives through the Extremely Cold and Snowy Winter of 2013/2014.
The Year of Gardening Austerity is thusly named not because we're spending a lot on our March wedding (first and only for both of us), but because I want to find out how much I have learned about propagation. Many of my plants are at the stage of life where division will be necessary for continued health and beauty. I'm also ready to try my hand at sticking cuttings of my dwarf shrubs: spirea 'Golden Elf' and weigela "My Monet" which have done quite well but look lonely as single specimens. I also have a bunch of daylily seeds we saved - it should be interesting to see what sorts of hybrids we ended up with. Bearberry looks like it'd be easy to layer.
My Red Drift carpet roses are screaming for a move from under the purple beautyberries which have grown bigger and better than I'd expected. I still have to decide where they're going - they've got to go somewhere that is low traffic not because they can't handle a trampling (they can), but because they're anklebiters. I can't get to them right now to start the process which starts with me pruning them way back, and then scoring around them with a spade to trim the roots so that I am not transporting a rootball the size of Rhode Island around my backyard.
I'm also looking forward to doing more work on the new shade beds behind the shed, to give my neighbors something to look at other than a big blank wall. I put two plugs of ornamental grass back there last year after Broccoli Boy helped me dig up a huge clump of it from the front walk bed (I replaced it with a magenta mondarda (bee balm) - which the bees really do like) - they were doing well in autumn, we'll see (next month, maybe) if they made it through the winter.
In other news, the winter has shown us a lot of fauna that we normally don't see. Birds like dark eyed juncos; and what I think is some sort of black and white warbler or perhaps a downy woodpecker; have been spotted at the feeder. BB spotted what is probably a red bellied woodpecker, but I wasn't home to see it.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Yeah, there must be a garden under there somewhere...
The bittercress is lurking under a thick blanket of snow, getting ready to seed on me as soon as it melts, I'm sure. I haven't gotten a chance to clean up the asparagus bed either.
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